Investigation of conductivity switching upon action of monoaxial pressure on plasticized PVC films

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates how monoaxial pressure induces significant conductivity switching in plasticized PVC films, revealing pressure thresholds and proposing a charge transfer model involving mobile polymer segments.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological electron-molecular model explaining conductivity anomalies based on dynamic traps and charge transfer by mobile segments.

Findings

Conductivity jumps of four or more orders occur at specific pressure thresholds.

The effect persists in thicker films, up to hundreds of microns.

A charge transfer model involving mobile segments explains the anomalies.

Abstract

The effect of conductivity switching of wideband polymers -plasticized PVC films under the influence of mono axial pressure is experimentally investigated. For various plasticizers the value of monoaxial pressure, causing jumps of conductivity on four and more orders, changes from units to hundreds bars, and the effect remains at a thickness of films of an order of hundreds micron, that is on two orders more than critical thickness for others wideband polymers. In addition to the reasons stated earlier on the interpretation of anomalies of plastic compounds conductivity, the phenomenological electron-molecular model of dynamic traps is considered, in which local transfer of charges is carried out by mobile segments of the plasticized polymer molecules.